Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Behind Bars

Prisons have been the setting for many great novels such as The Green Mile by Stephen King, and The Guards by Ken Bruen. It is a setting that has always intrigued (and terrified) me as a reader. Here for your consideration are a variety of recent novels with a prison theme.

"An Ohio death row inmate, convicted of killing his
16-year-old girlfriend when he was 17 years old, dies of heart disease.
Six years later, the police arrest a Canadian expatriate living in
Sweden for repeatedly kicking a drunken man in the head. A cantankerous
Det. Supt. Ewert Grens of the Stockholm police discovers that the
foreigner in their jail cell is a convicted murderer, the same death row
inmate who supposedly died in America six years earlier." - publisher

"*Starred Review* Bruen and Starr's third tag-team free-for-all seems
engineered to be a pleasure of the guiltiest kind, like No Country for
Old Men as directed by Mel Brooks. Max Fisher, legend in his own mind,
is finally where he truly belongs: prison. Will his backside withstand
the unwelcome attention of the Crips, the Aryan Brotherhood, and his
hulking cell mate Rufus? Does bullshit float? For a time, yes, and Max
swaggers like Don Rickles cast as Travis Bickle. Far away, Max's ex,
Angela Petrakos, is engaged in bloody deeds with the slimy roué
Sebastian (a dead ringer for Lee Child), which will land her in the
caged heat of a lesbian prison; well, it is prison on the Isle of
Lesbos. Meanwhile, aspiring true-crime writer Paula Segal agonizes over
her lust for Laura Lippman, but would go to the altar and even the
conjugal trailer with the repulsive Max in her ruthless hunt for fame. ..." - BooklistThe Village : a novel(M) by Nikita Lalwani

"Ray Bhullar arrives early on a winter morning at the
gates of a remote Indian village called Ashwer which will be her home
for the next three months. Beyond the lockless doors, village life goes
on as usual. And yet, the village is anything but normal. Despite the
domestic chores being carried out, cooking, fetching water and sewing
and laundering linens, Ashwer is a village of murderers, an experimental
open prison. And when Ray and her crew take up residence, to observe
and to make a documentary, it seems that they are innocent visitors into
a violent world." - publisher Hell & Gone(M) by Duane Swierczynski

"Picking up where Fun and Games (2011), Swierczynski's first Charlie
Hardie novel, left off, the second starts with the former PI in still
hotter water. After the gun battle that ended the debut, a groggy
Charlie finds himself in an ambulance, but it isn't going to the
hospital. When he comes to, he's deep underground, in the prison of all
prisons, run by the Accident People. But is he the warden or another
prisoner? Hardly matters, since there's no escape either way. And who
are the Accident People? Do they really run a secret America ? Whatever;
Charlie is only interested in getting out. The compelling premise pulls
all our paranoid strings, and Swierczynski, like a mad scientist
twirling dials, ratchets the tension ever tighter. The claustrophobic
setting drives the reader a little crazy, too, but that's the whole
point. And don't expect any release quite yet. The novel ends virtually
in midsentence, like a 1950s movie serial, with Charlie in his worst fix
yet. Stay tuned for part three of what may be the most unusual thriller
series in a long, long time." - Library Journal

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